The Colonel and General are Sleeping Together
by Kate McCaye
Summary: Post Zero Hour. Everyone was way too smiley in that episode.


A/N: Okey dokey, so this is a little tag for the Season 8 episode "Zero Hour." If you haven't seen it, it probably won't make a whole lot of sense, but who knows. Did the title grab your attention?

The Colonel and the General are Sleeping Together

"Sir, do you have a minute?" Carter asked, poking her head into General O'Neill's office.

"Actually, now, I can honestly answer yes to that question. Come on in, Carter." He smiled at her as she entered and closed the file he was perusing.

"So, the visit from the President went well," she said with another smile as she sat down in one of the two chairs that faced his desk.

"Yeah," he agreed, looking at her curiously.

"Sir?" she asked, in obvious response to the way he was looking at her.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"Nothing," she said with a smile, looking down.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept for more than an hour, and he was feeling more than a little loopy. He would gladly erase the last week of his life if he could. Then again, there wasn't any way it could get worse than that, was there? He laughed sharply, realizing he had just jinxed himself.

"Sir?"

"Carter, have I mentioned how delightful it is to realize that your three best friends have not, in fact, spent the last several days being tortured by Ba'al?" he asked conversationally.

"Yes, sir, but it's still good to hear," she replied sincerely.

They smiled at each other again. They were doing an awful lot of that lately, which was strange. In fact, Colonel Carter was reminding him a lot of Captain Carter, who had been much more smiley than Major Carter. Maybe it was the stress. Maybe they were all finally cracking up for good. Even Teal'c had been spotted smiling from time to time. Not to mention the stubbly hair…

"So," Carter said. "You heard all about our adventure… aside from the President visiting and the whole Camulus ZPM thing… did we miss anything exciting?"

"Oh, you have no idea… I don't even know where to begin. I'll skip over the fact that I risked an interplanetary incident by putting two argumentative ambassadors in time-out."

She smiled and tried not to laugh.

"And I'll skip over the exciting menu and decorative choices I made… there was the little incident of the gate… breaking."

"Breaking?"

"Yeah. Breaking. We were getting incoming wormholes but not able to dial out… Siler fixed it. Eventually."

"What exactly was…"

"You'll have to ask Siler about that… I basically tuned him out and tried willing him to turn into you so he could get it fixed faster. It didn't work."

"Siler is…"

"An excellent technician. But he's not you. You would've had the gate fixed in no time."

"Thank you, sir."

"Sure. Let's see… the entire SGC was overrun by an alien plant…"

"Okay, now you're just putting me on," she accused, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

"I swear," he said, holding his hands up innocently. "You can ask anybody. It was everywhere."

"How did a plant grow indoors without soil…"

"I have no idea… all it seemed to need was light. Of any kind. Artificial, whatever… it got in the walls… it was ridiculous. Completely resistant to pesticides, fire…"

"What about other types of light?" Carter interrupted. He froze, his mouth actually slightly open. "Sorry for interrupting you, sir, I just thought… well, if all the plant needed to grow was a form of light, maybe some form of invisible light, such as infrared or ultraviolet, might prove to be its poison…"

"Okay, it took everyone here _days _to figure that out… it's official. You're never leaving again." She smiled. "I'm serious," he insisted. "I'm going to go get a pair of handcuffs from the Airman by the elevator, so that the next time some idiot comes up to me wanting to bring back seeds from an alien planet, or the gate breaks down, or whatever…" He yawned loudly, covering his mouth with his hand.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, when was the last time you slept?" Carter asked in concern.

"Now, that's my line, Carter," he said with a warm smile. "Um… that would be the night before you guys left. And you?"

"The same," she admitted, looking down at her hands. The light mood had shifted quickly, as it so often did when they were alone.

"What's on your mind, Carter?"

She continued to study her hands as if she'd never found anything more fascinating.

"Colonel?" he prompted.

She looked up at him and sighed. "Sir… despite what Teal'c and Daniel may have reported, or… how you may have evaluated my performance… I'm not so sure I can…"

"Do not finish that sentence. That's an order," he said firmly, holding up a finger.

"Sir…"

"Are you questioning my decision making ability, Colonel?"

"No sir," she said quickly. "Just… questioning my own," she added quietly.

"Hey, your first mission you guys got ambushed completely on your own and you brought your entire team back without a scratch on any of you…"

"Sir, I was so worried the entire time we were out there… all I could think of was that I'd led Daniel and Teal'c to their deaths and…"

"Well, it's official," he interrupted with a smile.

"What is, sir?" she asked, completely confused.

"You've officially taken charge of SG-1. Now you know how I felt all the time, Carter."

She shook her head firmly. "Even if you did feel like that, sir, you never let us see it… You were always the one calming everybody down, no matter what… You just… made it look easy, sir."

"Easy! You want to talk about easy? Hammond made his job look easy, I just… look. You're going to have your own style as a leader. Everybody does. But your results speak for themselves. You're the only one second-guessing yourself here, Carter. Everyone else, including your team and your CO, have the utmost faith in your abilities. Now… I'm ordering you to stop criticizing yourself so harshly."

"Thank you sir," she said with another smile.

"We seem to be having a lot of the same problems these days," he said as he caught sight of the unsent letter lying on his desk.

"Sir?"

"I, ah… well, here, I was about to shred it. You can read it first…" He slid his letter to Hammond across the desk to her.

She picked it up curiously and read it to herself, glancing up at him in surprise multiple times. She had never heard him be so humble, self-criticizing, and introspective before. Even more surprising than the letter was the fact that he was showing it to her. Somehow, the knowledge that he was feeling just as out of water in his new position as she was, if not more so, was comforting to her.

When she finished reading it, she gave him another smile and said, "Sir? Can I put this in your shredder?"

"Be my guest," he said, leaning back in his chair. She got up and went over to his shredder. They both watched the document be torn into little pieces happily. "Carter, can I ask you a question?" he asked lightly as she sat back down.

"Sir, you're still my CO, you have the right to ask me anyth…"

"I know. This is different… if you've been so worried about being in charge of SG-1 and all, how come you've been grinning from ear to ear for the past few weeks?"

She blushed slightly and looked like she was trying hard not to smile yet AGAIN. "I miss General Hammond, sir, but… I just… I'm… happy with the new management."

Concealing a smile of his own, he leaned forward on his elbows and said, "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Colonel Carter, but… aren't you the one who said, 'if you don't take the job, we could end up with someone much worse?'"

"I just meant… okay, when you promoted me, you said… a lot of really nice things that I really appreciated… I just… I'm proud of you too, sir," she said sheepishly, as if it was something to be embarrassed about.

"You are?" he asked in surprise.

"It's not an appropriate thing to say as your 2IC, sir, I know, and I apolog…"

"Hey," he interrupted, holding his hands up. "I didn't hear it as coming from my 2IC. I heard it as coming from you. And… thank you."

They looked at each other seriously for several moments, then they suddenly both yawned into their hands, then laughed quietly.

"Jinx. You owe me a beer," O'Neill said.

Carter laughed. "I thought it was a Coke, sir."

"I don't like Coke though. I like beer."

"All right then, sir. First time we both have a night off…"

"So that would be what… forty years from now, when you're forced screaming and kicking into retirement?" he asked, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head.

She laughed and said, "At the very latest, sir. Speaking of work… am I keeping you from…"

"No… just… stay a while," he said quickly. "Put your feet up," he added. She looked at him suspiciously. "That's an order."

She wordlessly manipulated the empty chair next to her so that she could prop her legs up on it, settling down more comfortably into the chair.

"Gets lonely up here," he said quietly after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

"Well, you're always welcome in my lab, sir."

"Thank you, Carter. Unfortunately, to get to your lab I have to walk past many people who want many things. Whereas it used to be a nice little stroll, now it's about like being caught in heavy traffic."

"That's too bad, sir."

"Don't worry. It'd take more than that to keep me away from all those neat blinky lights you've got in there."

They smiled yet again. Carter, noticing that her CO was right about the inordinate amount of smiling they were both doing all of a sudden, wondered if she should have the oxygen and CO2 scrubbers checked on their level.

"In the meantime, just keep in mind, no matter what you may hear floating around the base, my door's always open. For you anyway. Even if I do decide to invest in that Do Not Disturb sign…"

She laughed and nodded. "Thanks, sir."

They fell into a sleepy silence again. O'Neill reclined back in his extremely comfortable chair and could feel himself about to nod off. "All joking aside, Carter," he said quietly. "I missed you. And not just because we needed you here to control the alien jungle and fix the gate."

"I missed you too, sir. It just wasn't the same being stranded on an alien planet without you." He laughed.

"Sarcasm, huh. Learn that from your last team leader?"

"Maybe."

"Good."

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Walter was pacing nervously outside General O'Neill's office, report in hand. Daniel, who had been heading in to see Jack, stopped in surprise.

"Umm… Walter? What are you doing?"

"I'm supposed to get General O'Neill's signature on this…"

"So… why are you pacing around out here?" Daniel asked patiently.

"Well… Colonel Carter went in there over two hours ago, sir, I don't want to… barge in."

Daniel, who had no problem barging in, pressed his ear to the door. He couldn't hear anything. He tried the doorknob, and it was open, so he pushed the door open somewhat cautiously and laughed in relief.

"I'm glad you didn't interrupt them," Daniel said, pushing the door open all the way to give Walter a good view of the General's office. They both smiled.

Colonel Carter was half-laying down in the two chairs that faced his desk, her cheek on her propped up palm. She was sound asleep and drooling slightly. General O'Neill, on the other side of his desk, was sprawled in his own chair, his head lolled back, his face pointed straight at the ceiling, his mouth wide open. He was snoring very quietly.

"Any chance those forms can wait until tomorrow morning?" Daniel asked Walter quietly.

"Yes, sir," Walter agreed.

Daniel flipped off the lights and shut the door.


End file.
